Wednesday, September 30, 2009

After Budapest I went back to Bodø, but only spent a few days or weeks here before moving to a small swedish town by the name of Riddarhyttan ('Knightscabin'). Once upon a time they had survived by farming and mining, but now there where almost nothing left of either. Of the 500 people living there 250 were members of The Swedish Amateur Theatre Union (or whatnot).

I was living with this girl I'd met on the streets of Budapest; she was traveling with a small troupe visiting eastern european theatre festivals - living on what they could make performing swedish folksongs on the streets. She was real cool and pretty and perfect and before she dumped me she introduced me to a book that to this day has made the deepest impression on me as a writer: Den Högsta Kasten 'The Highest Cast'.

It is not so much the quality of the work (a book about swedish elite partyboys and partygirls) as the leading motif behind author Carina Rydbergs unmercifull portrayal of her peers: as long as she is as unmerciful to herself as to those she writes about she is ethicaly in the clear.

I cannot be honest about myself, and I wouldn't even want to expose my friends - neither to their own ignorant selves nor the world. But I try to be honest, but to often the darkness I carry would only hurt those that love me and I stay my words. To often the truth of other peoples lives carry the same wicked sting; and I stay my words.

This is the reality we all live in. Lies lie all 'round us, enveloping our lives, histories, futures and the very core of our societies. I fucking hate depression.